Letter to the editor

Recently at our beloved Linfield we held our annual elections to determine who would form the ASLC cabinet for next year.

I personally never met any candidates for any office, and so was forced to make my decision off of a small piece put in the Linfield Review.

There has been mention (from the Review,) that there is clearly something wrong with our student body’s attitude towards voting and elections in general since we had a whopping 618 students who voted, totaling some 39 percent of the entire school.

I would argue that instead of having an issue with voter apathy, we have been fortunate to have the turnout we managed!

During any year that is not a presidential election year, the average voter turnout in state and local elections have been anywhere from twenty percent to forty percent, depending on the state one is in.

During a presidential election (such as the one coming in November,) voter turnout reaches closer to fifty percent for the entire country.

Going back decades, the last time we as a nation reached 60 percent or more in a national election was when we put Richard Nixon in office for his first term (1968).

Doing more local research reveals that in Oregon, the average voter turnout is lucky to exceed 30 percent for any election.

I would say that our election numbers for ASLC simply means that we have a higher than average turnout, but that it is true for many students on campus that they either do not have faith in ASLC or do not realize the impact ASLC could have on our day-to-day lives.

Since I have been attending Linfield College (three years now,) every candidate’s platform for an office in ASLC has been almost the same.

I find it hard to take a president, vice-president, or any other cabinet member seriously when they recycle the same ideas over and over.

Such broad and positive planks such as “improving student involvement and campus communications” are a mystery to me, because nothing changes.

Year after year less and less people attend Cat-Cab, or other events ASLC has put on.

It’s time for them to step up, yes, but in order to do so they must first provide the student body with something out of the ordinary, something beyond the simple general promises that will actually impact the student body.

Then, with the students actually having an investment in the election process, perhaps voter turnout will increase beyond what it is already.

Another issue with ASLC is that they have close connections to the college administration.

This is all well and good for having communication, but as someone who is constantly hearing nothing but the status quo from ASLC I cannot help but think there is something wrong, either at the administration level, with ASLC, or both.

Communication counts for nothing if the governing body is lethargic and irrelevant in student’s lives.

If the college wants to have talks with the students via ASLC, that is perfectly fine. However, to use an example, when both the administration and ASLC representatives come out of talks to announce more tuition hikes, I would at least like an explanation as to why.

The total cost of me personally attending Linfield has been raised by around $10,000 since I have gotten here, and ASLC is either very bad at informing the student body of why we are being charged more or they are simply giving in to whatever the college administration thinks is best.

-Ian Cooper, ‘17